Franzsepp Würtenberger

Franzsepp Würtenberger (born September 9, 1909 in Zurich ; † January 15, 1998 in Karlsruhe ) was a German art historian .

Life

Franzsepp Würtenberger was born in Zurich in 1909 as the son of the painter Ernst Würtenberger . An older sister was the teacher and draftsman Monika Würtenberger, an older brother the criminal law professor Thomas Würtenberger (1907-1989). In 1921 the family moved to Karlsruhe , where he graduated from the Bismarck-Gymnasium Karlsruhe and then worked for the longest part of his life , lived and died in 1998.

At first Franzsepp Würtenberger considered becoming a painter (he drew a lot), but then began studying art history, in 1930 in Freiburg, in 1931 in Vienna, where he heard lectures from Julius von Schlosser , and in 1931 in Munich, where he heard Wilhelm Pinder . In 1932 he went to Hamburg because of Erwin Panofsky , in 1932 he studied in Karlsruhe, and until 1935 again in Freiburg, where he received his doctorate. After completing his doctorate with Kurt Bauch on “The Dutch image of society”, he worked in Karlsruhe as a volunteer at the state art gallery in Karlsruhe . In 1937 he received a scholarship at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome . Hermann Egger brought him to the University of Graz as an assistant in 1938 , where he was appointed lecturer in 1943 and began a habilitation on mannerist ceiling painting. Illness and writer's block, which Würtenberger describes in his autobiography as a spiritual maturation process, interrupted his professional career as an art historian - the Second World War and the collapse shook his worldview. From 1945 to 1949 he recovered with his mother in Stockach and began lecturing in various cities on Lake Constance. Under the impression of the book “ Loss of the Middle ” by Hans Sedlmayr , published in 1948, Würtenberger began a new attempt at scientific work. At the Freiburg branch of the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe , Würtenberger became a lecturer in 1949 and began a friendship with Klaus Bremer from the circle of the “fragments group” co-founded by Rainer Maria Gerhardt . In 1951 Würtenberger came to the Institute for Building History at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , where his friend Arnold Tschira from Freiburg was appointed director and where he later became an adjunct professor.

Thought and work

Würtenberger's fundamental work on Mannerism , which was also translated into English, Spanish and Italian , had great success . His extensive work on the Baroque era , suggested by the same publisher but not printed years later , has unfortunately not yet found a publisher; its table of contents is printed in Würtenberger's autobiography. His thinking, which crossed the technical boundaries of the art historian and increasingly turned to art theory and philosophy, shows most clearly his work "Weltbild und Bilderwelt", which he himself considered to be his most important work, although it was largely ignored by his colleagues and only by a few Artists and art educators was picked up. His research on the relationship between painting and music also has an interdisciplinary artistic and scientific approach: In this work, which analyzes all of modern and modern history, he showed himself e.g. B. open to the encounter with the then still young conductor, painter and writer Hortense von Gelmini , whose picture " Pentecost " he placed before this work.

Würtenberger's autobiography, which also includes lectures and unpublished works, is entitled: “The I as the center of the world - an aeonic biography”. The extensive work, with numerous own drawings and examples from art history, shows the broad, philosophically reflective, humanistic and interdisciplinary approach and in particular Würtenberger's conservative criticism of the time. In it he also confronts his own family and spiritual origins as well as life struggles, occasionally with self-irony, up to his death.

Würtenberger became increasingly interested in architecture, as his trilogy "Architecture and Light", "Architecture and Gold", "Architecture and Cosmos and the Reclamation of Heaven" shows. He was with z. B. friends with Reinhard Bentmann . His original research and theses on the “rotating space feeling” in art, the “architecture of living beings” and the “anti-technical museum”, but largely ignored by the specialist field, attracted students and, above all, the artists of the “Neue Schule” studio building.

Würtenberger did not see himself as an academic in the narrow sense of the word, but also as a creative artist: “Some people are only artists once in their lives. Only when the point is to write the signature. ”In October 1976, on the occasion of his farewell as a university professor, Würtenberger presented his“ acrobatic signatures ” to his students in the Sandkorn Theater in carnival costume .

Artist friends and opponents

Franzsepp Würtenberger was known and friends with many artists. Through his father he already knew z. B. Hans Thoma . The sculptor Hans Mauracher created a bust of him. Reinhard Dassler (on his high altar of the church in St. Gallus in Hofweier ), Clara Kress and Güther Diehl portrayed him. He was also friends with Adolf Eiermann , Emil Wachter and Hermann Finsterlin . His art theory was fought against by HAP Grieshaber and Georg Meistermann, who taught at the Karlsruhe Art Academy .

Political activities

Würtenberger, who harbored a deep skepticism about the acceleration of traffic and the alienation caused by modern technology, became a sharp critic of the Südtangente (Karlsruhe) and in 1988 submitted unsuccessful petitions to the state government of Baden-Württemberg against the program of the Center for Art and Medien (ZKM), which in his opinion was too technocratic, while he was drafting a program for an "anti-technical museum".

Publications (selection)

• The graphic work of Ernst Würtenberger (= writings of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe 1). Karlsruhe 1938.
• Worldview and world of images. From late antiquity to modern times . Vienna / Munich 1958.
• Ernst Würtenberger 1868–1934 . In: Hegau 7, 1959, pp. 86-92.
• Mannerism. The European style of the 16th century . Vienna 1962 [American edition 1963; Spanish edition 1964; Italian edition, 1964].
• My acrobatic signatures . Karlsruhe 1976.
• Painting and music. The history of the relationship between two arts, presented according to the sources in the period from Leonardo da Vinci to John Cage . Lang, Frankfurt a. M., Bern, Las Vegas 1979.
• A walk through the Braunenberg estate through the eyes of the painter Ernst Würtenberger . In: Hegau 36/37, 1979/80, pp. 101-140.
• The self as the center of the world. An eonic biography . Karlsruhe 1986.
• The architecture of living things . Karlsruhe 1989, Frankfurt (M.) 1994.

literature

• Günther Diehl: The man and scholar Franzsepp Würtenberger in outline. Laudation on his 70th birthday . 1979.
• Richard Belm: Professor Dr. Franzsepp Würtenberger 75 years . In: Ekkhart 1985, pp. 139-141.
• Hubert Morgenthaler: World of ideas or concrete reality? Personality and work of the art historian Professor Franzsepp Würtenberger : In: Badische Heimat 71, 1991, pp. 665–677.
• Worldview, system of thought and art form. Franzsepp Würtenberger in memory . Edited by Günther Diehl. Catalog of the exhibitions in the Museum of Literature on the Upper Rhine in Karlsruhe and the New School Studio, Karlsruhe-Bulach. Edition Isele, Eggingen 1999, ISBN 3-86142-999-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Franzsepp Würtenberger in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Franzsepp Würtenberger: "Mannerism. The European style of the 16th century". Vienna 1962 [American edition 1963; Spanish edition 1964; Italian edition, 1964].
2. ↑ Franzsepp Würtenberger: "World view and world of images. From late antiquity to modern times". Vienna / Munich 1958.
3. ↑ Painting and Music. The history of the relationship between two arts, presented according to the sources in the period from Leonardo da Vinci to John Cage . Lang, Frankfurt a. M., Bern, Las Vegas 1979.
4. ^ Franzsepp Würtenberger: The I as the center of the world an aeonic biography , Karlsruhe 1986, p. 344.
5. ^ Franzsepp Würtenberger: My acrobatic signatures , Karlsruhe 1976.